Man of Many Talents
by akat24
Summary: Why they picked Buffy to make nice with the Phoenix Foundation was beyond her. Seriously, she was just as likely to declare war on them as work out a partnership.
1. Man of Many Talents

**Spoilers:** All of BtVS and MacGyver.  
**Disclaimer:** BtVS belongs to Joss Whedon. MacGyver belongs to Lee David Zlotoff.  
**Summary:** Why they picked her to make nice with the Phoenix Foundation was beyond her. Seriously, she was just as likely to declare war on them as work out a partnership.

* * *

Buffy pulled into the parking space and glanced at the time on her cell phone. Crap. She was late. So not the way to start a business relationship.

Of course, why they all picked her to make nice with the Phoenix Foundation was beyond her. Seriously, while the organization might not consider camo the new black, it definitely gave off that secretive, Initiative vibe – which meant she was just as likely to declare war on them as work out a partnership.

Sometimes she seriously questioned Giles' judgment.

With a sigh, she turned off the ignition and threw all her crap into her purse. Then, grabbing her mocha Frappuccino, she got out of the car and walked briskly to the elevator. The sooner she got this over with the better. For everyone.

She pushed the button and waited for the elevator. As the seconds ticked by, she contemplated just taking the stairs. Sure she was in the underground parking lot and her meeting was on the 30th floor, but she could just pop in her earbuds and make it her workout for the day.

Just as she grabbed her iPod from her purse, the doors opened. With a shrug, she stuffed her iPod back and stepped inside the elevator. 'Hot and sweaty' really wasn't the impression she should be making anyway.

As the doors started to close, Buffy caught some movement out of the corner of her eye.

There was a man jogging toward her; he was tall with silver hair, looking more like he belonged on a motorcycle than here with his leather jacket – and he obviously trying to catch the elevator.

Instinctively, Buffy shot her hand out just as the doors were about to close, pushing on them with enough strength to trigger the mechanism so they reopened.

The guy quickly stepped into the elevator and flashed her a smile.

"Thanks," he said. "Nice reflexes you got there. Be careful, though. Elevators won't always reopen even though your hand is there."

Buffy grimaced at the thought of getting stuck. "As a fan of all ten fingers, duly noted," she replied, just as the doors began to close again.

They stood in silence as the elevator began to move. Never one for awkward silences, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, debating whether to make with the small talk. Before she could make up her mind, however, the ground beneath her feet began to shake.

Earthquake. A bad one.

Buffy clung to the sides of the elevator as it jerked to a stop, the lights flickering on and off. She held her breath as everything continued to shake.

Then it was over, and the emergency lights came on.

"You okay?" the man asked.

Buffy nodded almost automatically, even though she was so far from okay. In fact, she had bypassed 'slightly uneasy' and was heading straight for 'full blown panic'.

Seriously, it was like her worst nightmare. Being caught in an earthquake _and_ trapped within a small confined space where oxygen could become an issue? She half-expected her elevator buddy to turn into the First right then and there.

Then she got a grip. The Hellmouth wasn't opening, and she wasn't buried alive. She was stuck in an elevator with a guy who was two seconds away from thinking she was some ditzy blonde who panicked at the first sign of trouble.

"I'm fine," she said loudly, just as much for herself as for him. Then she began looking around. "So what do we do now?"

He pressed the emergency button on the elevator, but big surprise, it wasn't working.

He turned to her with a slight frown on his face. "The earthquake sensors should've kicked in and brought us to the closest floor," he explained. "Something's wrong."

"The story of my life," she muttered under her breath as she pulled out her cell phone and looked at the screen.

No reception, either. That was a little surprising, but they were probably still underground – and more than just six feet.

Repressing a shudder, Buffy turned toward her elevator buddy, only to find him studying her.

"What?" she said self-consciously.

"Those wouldn't be headphones sticking out of your purse, would they?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrow questioningly.

He gave her a crooked grin. "Just trust me," he assured her. Then he paused. "I'll need your drink, too."

More curious than anything, she handed the requested items over. "Okay, but if you just sit in the corner, listening to some tunes and enjoying my caffeinated beverage, you _will_ get hurt," she warned.

"Fair enough," he agreed, just as he pulled out a swiss army knife – which he then used to cut a length of cord from her earbuds.

She was about to protest – because, hey, there had been no mention of destruction to personal property – but it died in her throat as he extracted one of the wires from inside.

She watched in rapt attention, wondering what he was going to do, especially after he motioned for her phone.

As she handed over her cell, she decided that they might as well get to know each other. "I'm Buffy, by the way."

"MacGyver," he absently replied, focusing mostly on taking the top of the antenna off her phone.

"MacGyver," she echoed. A slight frown appeared on her face. "Is that your first name?"

He hesitated, his hand stilling for just a second before he pulled out the toothpick from his knife and began twirling the wire around it, creating a bunch of small coils.

She arched her brow. "C'mon, I just told you my name is _Buffy_. It can't be worse than that. Unless... are _you_ 'Buffy', too?"

He laughed at this. "No," he admitted, but he didn't elaborate any further.

Buffy snorted. "Fine, then, be all secret agent man about it. But until it's proven otherwise, I'm gonna have to think you've got nothing on me in the name department."

He flashed her an amused look before getting back to work, taking out this pen thingy that wasn't a pen at all but some kind of mini torch, which he used to meld the wire to the phone antennae. Then, as the finishing touch, he took the straw from her drink, stuck the end of his shirt in it to dry it off, and put it over the wire.

Then he gave her a wink and dialed.

"Wow, you _are_ the person to get stuck in an elevator with," she commented, definitely impressed.

"You should see what I can do with duct tape," he quipped. Then whoever he called must've answered, because he turned his attention toward the phone. "Hey, Nikki..."

Buffy's ears perked up at this. She was supposed to meet the Director of Operations – a Nikki Carpenter. It could just be a coincidence, but still. She listened closely as he continued to speak.

"Yep, looks like our reunion will be delayed... S'okay, I'm sure there will be other ways to try and lure me back... Stuck in the elevator, actually, with a Ms. Buffy..."

He trailed off, looking at Buffy questioningly. Before she could say anything, however, 'Nikki' must've replied, because his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

He opened his mouth – to talk to her or Nikki, Buffy didn't know – and she didn't get to find out, either, because everything started shaking again.

Aftershock.

They both held on to the walls until it was over. As the last tremor ended, MacGyver looked at her phone and sighed.

"The reception's gone," he explained. Then he gave her a small smile. "So I'm thinking that maybe we should try to get out of here. You game?"

Buffy straightened up immediately. "I thought you'd never ask," she grinned.

MacGyver handed her phone back to her. Then, to her surprise, instead of looking up at the roof, like she thought he would, he went over to the doors and pried them open.

Apparently, they had almost made it to the next level; though the bottom two thirds of the elevator was still in the shaft part, they could see the outer doors to the next level in the top third.

He turned to her with a frown. "This is the tricky part," he admitted. "The lever to open the outer doors is up at the top, and it may be tough to reach from here. If only I had something like an umbrella, or a..."

As he continued to think aloud, Buffy casually made her way to the elevator doors.

There was no way she was sitting in this death trap any longer than she had to.

She waited until he was distracted. The, moving as quickly as she could, she gripped the lip of the outer doors and gave it an experimental tug. She felt the metal groan under her hand.

She so had this.

Without bothering to see if he was looking, she gave it a big yank, feeling the doors give way. Grinning, she turned toward MacGyver. Not too surprisingly, he was staring at her, completely stunned.

"The latch must've broken in the earthquake," she explained. "You'd think with all this high tech Phoenix makes, they'd build their elevators to code."

MacGyver cracked a faint grin at this. Then he gave her a careful look. "Looks like I'm not the only handy one to have around," he said dryly.

Wanting to draw attention away from the doors, she nodded toward the opening. "So, MacGyver, what do you think? Want to blow this popsicle stand?"

"What do I think?" he echoed thoughtfully. A slow smile spread on his face. "I think, Buffy Summers, that working for Phoenix again just got a lot more interesting."

* * *

A/N: I hope I got MacGyver's voice right... it's been a long time, and RDA has since become Jack O'Neill to me. :P


	2. Interlude in F

Faith dragged her feet as she walked into Slayer HQ. She was all for working as a team – or at least, she had been ever since they fought the First – but she just wasn't feeling this weekly debriefing shit.

Her mood picked up, however, as soon as she stepped into the front hall and saw the hottie standing there – not that she was interested or anything, because she and Robin were still doing whatever it was they were doing, but because she knew who the guy was.

Tall and lean, silver-white hair, with a leather jacket and aviators in hand? This had to be the dude Buffy got stuck in the elevator with.

Judging by the way he was patiently waiting, Buffy was probably on her way – which meant _she_ only had so much time to mess with the guy before then.

"So you're the guy Buffy's been talking about?"

At the sound of her voice, he immediately turned toward her.

"I'm the guy from the Phoenix Foundation, if that's what you mean," he said with a polite smile.

Faith looked him up and down as she continued to walk toward him, not stopping until she was right in front of him. Though his brows furrowed slightly, he didn't back down, and his eyes didn't stray south of her face.

First test? Totally passed.

"She's been talking about you. Says you're some sort of boy genius with the gadgets," she revealed. Then she held out her hand. "I'm Faith, by the way."

He let out a short laugh, even as he gave her hand a brief shake. "MacGyver, and not quite. I'm just good at improvising," he said with a self-deprecating shrug.

"Oh yeah?" she replied as she began fishing around in her pockets. "I'll be the judge of that. Ready for a pop quiz?"

She pulled out whatever shit she had on her, which was the usual; a condom, a stake, and lipstick.

"Here. What can you do with this?" she challenged.

At first, he let out a small chuckle. When he saw she wasn't joking, he took the items from her, eyebrows raised in amusement.

"_Faith!_"

Both Faith and MacGyver turned to see Buffy doing her best impression of the road runner, dust trails and all.

"Hey, B," Faith greeted. "Just talking with your boy toy here."

She smirked as Buffy apologized to MacGyver, then grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the nearest empty room.

"He is not my boy toy," Buffy hissed. "He's the representative from the Phoenix Foundation here on business."

Faith shrugged. "Whatever. My bad," she apologized, even though she wasn't sorry at all. Then she smirked. "But how was I supposed to know that? You do have a thing for older guys. And you've been talking about him nonstop."

Exaggeration or not, it was funny as hell seeing Buffy's eyes bulge out like that. Faith loved the girl like a sister, but, man, she needed to learn how to lighten up.

"Faith!" Buffy exclaimed hotly.

Case in fucking point.

Faith snickered, but when Buffy looked like she was about to blow a gasket, she backed off.

"Alright, alright, I'm gone," she promised. Shit-eating grin firmly in place, she walked out of the room and glanced over at the boy toy in question. "Yo, Mac! Nice meetin' ya!"

"Wait a sec!" he called out, just as Buffy came out of the room.

The two slayers watched as he trotted over to them. As soon as he had reached them, he pulled something from behind his back and presented it to Faith with a flourish.

She burst out laughing.

He had blown up the condom like a balloon, drew a happy face on it with the lipstick, and taped it to the stake with duct tape.

Dude was awesome. Totally passed his tests with flying colors and then some.

She slapped him on the back – maybe a little too hard judging by his wince – and grinned. Then, with one last wave, she turned to walk away. Before she did, however, she leaned toward Buffy's ear.

"B," she said in a loud whisper. "You gotta reconsider this whole boy toy thing so you can find out how good he _really_ is with his hands."

Then without waiting to see Buffy's reaction, she sauntered away, whistling a cheerful tune, condom balloon in hand.

That right there? Totally made the trip today worthwhile.

* * *

A/N: For those of you unfamiliar with MacGyver, he always carried duct tape on him. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
